Advanced format hard disk - support?

John_Gray

I'd like to replace my laptop's 200 GB SATA 2½" internal drive with a 750 GB version. This new drive comes as an Advanced Format hard disk, with physical 4K sectors rather than physical 512 byte sectors. The new disk specification includes the phrase "Physical 4K blocksize with 512 emulation".

Having read http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/04/01/the-facts-4k-advanced-format-hard-disks/1 I am not really the wiser on whether I can simply replace the 200 GB drive with the new 750 GB drive, without worrying about hard disk controller and software driver compatibilities...

Does any hardware techie have a view on this?

Thanks!

coxy17

At 750GB you shouldn't have a problem. It's drives over 2TB that cause an issue on 32bit Windows operating systems due to limitations with the Mater Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme. If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 you should be able to use it without any issues. Likewise, I think Windows XP should also be able to use it because it's under 2TB.

Have a read through the attached link to help you decide. I've not got any Advanced Format discs myself so please don't take my word for it!

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/2754/c/130/p/227,294

Hammyman

The SATA controller doesn't care. It is the OS which is the limitation, if any.

John_Gray

There's an interesting Microsoft Knowledge-base article relating to updates to Windows 7 for Advanced Format disks. I see no mention of any XP support, but this may be get-round-able with the so-called '+1' sector bodge, implemented by a jumper on the hard disk. Or the disk hardware may make the 4K sector transparent to the operating system, and cause the built-in disk controller to emulate 512-byte physical sectors, but that may be quite inefficient.

I don't think 2 TB drives in a laptop, available or not, are going to worry me much!